Rachel Alexander 03 - A Hell of a Dog

from the table. “To Beryl,” she said, and once again we all stood, toasting Beryl.
    ‘Well, as luck would have it, just when I needed her most, to discuss breed character, which she does so brilliantly, she called me to say she’d heard of our symposium, I think we were written up in the Kmnel Gazette , among other places, and she chewed me out for not including her. Can you imagine!”
    Sam bent to pick up her briefcase and pulled out the symposium programs, handing them to Woody Wright, who took one and began to pass the others around. “You’ll see that Beryl is opening for the students tomorrow at ten sharp, in the Lincoln auditorium. And, as you all requested, don’t blame me when coffee arrives at five-fifteen; you are meeting at six, not six-oh-one, directly across the street for tracking. Alan is laying the track tonight after dinner. Well, not immediately after dinner. At four-thirty in the morning. So when he falls asleep in his soup at lunch, folks, you’ll know why.”
    “I can suggest something guaranteed to keep him awake,” Chip said, leaning close so that no one else would hear him. I didn’t respond. Everyone had started to applaud Alan for his willingness to be in Central Park in the middle of the night. Everyone, that is, except Boris.
    “As for the rest of you, listen up, folks, stay out of the park after dark unless you have the National Guard along to protect you. Of course, when we go as a group—”
    “Waiting a minute,” Boris said.
    “I know the shpeel, Boris. And I know Igor.”
    “Igor gone.Sasha now.”
    “Whatever. The point I am trying to make is that since you and Sasha are invulnerable, I was counting on you to go along with Alan tonight, staying off the track, of course, but making sure he’s safe.”
    “He’ll be as safe what he’s ever been,” Boris said proudly. “You not to worry.”
    “Good,” she said, taking her seat. “I’m glad that’s settled.” She nodded to the waiter to begin serving.
    After the smoked salmon en croute and the arugula salad, and halfway through the filet mignon, except for Boris, who claimed he was a “wegetarian” and couldn’t eat an animal, apparently with the exception of the domesticated hot dog, the double doors once again opened, and there in all his glory was Bucky King, carrying a Tibetan terrier and flanked by two borzoi. You had to give it to the man, he knew how to make an entrance. His follow-through wasn’t too shabby either.
    “Sorry to be late,” he said. “I just flew in from the coast. Angelo,” he said, riding the TT up and down against his no doubt hairy chest, “had to tape Leno.” He sighed for emphasis. It’s a tough life, his expression said, and thank God I’m the one who gets to live it.
    He had a neck like a bullmastiff’s, a marine do, and an artificial-looking tan, like that stuff you schmear on from a bottle.
    He still had his New York accent, but he’d eighty-sixed his New York pallor.
    I waited in rapt attention for the rest of the puff puff, and had it not been for the fact that the gentleman to my left was trying to resuscitate his dead marriage, I would have pinched him hard on the thigh to make sure he didn’t miss a word of Bucky’s show.
    Then it came, the rest of the obligatory, laudatory, self-congratulatory explanation for the presence of Alexi and Tamara. Bucky looked down as if he’d just noticed them standing regally at either side. “Oh, yes,” he said, “we had to shoot a Stoli commercial, too.” He rolled his eyes to let us know how difficult it was, and what a brilliant trainer he was to have pulled it off.
    I looked across the table and saw Tracy blinking as if the light emanating off Bucky were too much for her unprotected eyes. Alan Cooper’s mouth formed a thin, straight line, and his left eye had begun to twitch. I felt Chip lean sideways again, as if he were about to whisper something in my ear, but then Bucky noticed Beryl.
    “Dame Potter,” he said, bowing from the waist, a neat trick since you couldn’t say he really had a waist. It looked more like the equator.
    “Oh, do sit down, Bucky,” she said. “Our food is getting cold. No one has the time to watch you make a spectacle of yourself.” Then she turned her attention to the rest of us. “The queen, it seems, has neglected to inform me that I have been knighted,” she said, “and until such time as she does, I’d appreciate it if you all called me Beryl.”
    I don’t know if